Girl Power

WE HAVE GOAT BABIES!!! We have four little girl goat kids!!! Though we have killed a fair number of chickens, and hatched a fair number of chicks, this is the first birth on the farm.

Esther's fresh babies

On Thursday, Ariel was stalling coming home from home from work; talking to the other teachers about their birth stories as it seemed like our goats might never actually have their kids. At home, Tim and Ariel had dinner and did other things around the property until dusk before finally going to check on the goats for the night. We did our twice daily checks for signs of labor and noticed Esther looked like something might be happening! We headed into the barn and realized something had already happened! Curled up looking content in the hay were two fluffy, healthy baby girl goats. We made sure both had figured out how to nurse, dipped their umbilical cords in a shot glass of iodine, and gave them some snuggles, then tucked everyone in for the night.

Esther's babies: "Sandy" and "______"

Friday, Ariel checked on the goats every few hours to make sure those little ones were doing well and to watch for Petunia's babies. Although it was a relief to find happy babies already in the barn with no need for any human intervention, Ariel really wanted to see some goat kids being born (Tim, not so much).  Despite wanting to spend all day watching and snuggling and making 20 minute videos of sleeping goat kids, there was a lot to do up on the property on Friday with the electric company finally coming to connect the power and the possibility of the internet folks showing up with phone lines, which meant getting that trench ready and the power covered with dirt. 

We were so excited about the power until those goat kids came.

As things wrapped up on the property for the day, Ariel headed back to check on the goats. Petunia came right up and looked straight at Ariel; curling her lips with a contraction, then turned sideways and showed her abdomen tightening with the next contraction, then turned all the way around for the next contraction and there was no doubt: the babies were coming. 

Petunia's lips curling with an early contraction.

Petunia curled up right next to Ariel on the patio of the barn in the sun and had her babies. When the first kid was nearly out, Petunia let out some loud noises and neighbor Melinda yelled "We're having a baby!" and headed over to check it out. Grandpa also came down the stairs with a camera and the two spectators met at the gate as the second baby was born. Melinda held food for the very hungry and deserving Petunia while Ariel held fresh wet babies up to nurse and Grandpa took pictures. 

Wet babies and Petunia

By the time Tim arrived the babies were fluffy and dry, the mess had been cleaned up, and there was a clear "1" on Petunia's first born daughter. Tim wondered why Ariel would mark a new baby with a grease pen but chalked it up to one of those weird things his farmer-wife sometimes does. 

Una nursing

"Una-Tuna", our bouncy baby girl, came pre-marked with a clear #1 so there would be no question of her standing in life. "Dosey-Josie" wasn't born with a "2" on her side or we would really be suspicious. We are hoping the "1" stays as Una grows.

Tim has been bringing Tilly out to meet the goat kids each evening and she's learning to move slowly and be gentle with them. Mama and baby goats and even the chickens don't seem to mind her too much, and we are hopeful when these kids get a little bigger, they will be happily playing with Tilly.

This morning Ariel milked Petunia and Esther for the first time since kidding and took 1/4 cup from each of them, not wanting to steel too much from those tiny babies but wanting to encourage the girls to produce a little extra milk for the humans and get used to the whole milking thing.

The morning deer once they were far enough away to take a picture of more than their ears

Back at the bus, Tim woke up surrounded by deer, chipmunks, birds, butterflies, and slugs. The deer were almost touching the bus. It is pretty incredible to live so surrounded by wildlife.

Now that the babies are born, the power is in, we on to our next project. We are continuing the fencing around the property and that means going back to our first project - that big pile of trees we cut down wile felling the big snag that was hanging over our property. All those trees happened to fall right on the property line, and the root ball from the big tipped up snag also was blocking the path of our fence. Tim got out the chainsaw and went back to yet again, cutting up that old snag. We cut the tree off the root ball and let the stump tip back down to the earth and out of the way of our fence (then chopped up the rest of the dozen trees in that pile of logs).

Video of cutting down trees, deer, baby goats, baby goats trying to nurse on Tilly...

Amazingly, we cleared a trail in a fairly straight line, pulled up hundreds of nettles (and got stung with a few more) and made a good start on fencing the south side of our property. Soon the goats can come stars grazing the brush and Tilly will be able to run off-leash while we work without visiting the neighbors. 

Tim spacing the T-posts before pounding them in to the ground along the fence line

Digging ditches

Oh how we long for power! To plug things in to charge, to flick a switch and have light, to have things in the fridge stay cold, to have heat! We've been reading books by lamp light. It is time for that to change! Getting power installed has become our top priority and now we have the ditch and enormous power lines to be ready for the electric company to plug us in to the grid! 

With highly skilled excavator work, we were able to dig the entire 200 feet of ditch, including steep hills, without a shovel - unless you count all the shoveling Tim had to do to get the excavator un-stuck for Ariel... Then we pulled and pulled and pulled until the very heavy, large wire was the entire length of the ditch. 

Whidbey Topsoil brought the pole strapped to the top of a dump truck full of fill gravel and with the help of the excavator, we got our pole in place, ready for Tim to climb up to finish the wiring for our inspection.

Down at the big house, we've been enjoying dinners and card games with the whole family (missing Krista) while Brother Tim, Brother Daniel, and Amanda visited for the weekend. 

Brother Tim roped us in to helping (mostly watching and critiquing) with his project of filling a pair of ox horns with resin and lights for future van-bumper mounting. Brother Tim then also roped Tim into spending the weekend in California helping him repair melted wires and damaged electrical parts on his boat. 

Grandpa had double the dogs to take on walks around the property with him while Rowdy was here. It's hard to tell if those brother dogs miss each other, but Nemo seems pretty happy being an only dog, spoiled with hot dogs and sleeping on Grandpa's chair.

Before heading back to Alaska, Mom-Joy and Dad-Rich made sure to get thoroughly exhausted doing as many projects as possible down here on Honeymoon Point.

Somehow they managed to cut and pry a trail through the huge log jam on the beach.

They also did some pruning, leaf blowing, and started a new fence down the North property line.

Tilly spent lots of time going for long walks with "Grandma" while Ariel did things like practicing sitting in a totaled car talking to an imaginary patient wile the fire department broke windows and ripped off side panels around her.